High Speed Networks Bumping into Speed of¬†Light

Joab Jackson from IDG writes that with global networks carrying complex time-sensitive data, the speed of light is actually becoming a significant source of latency. And for high-frequency traders, that latency translates into lost opportunity for profit.

For high frequency trading, light propagation delays are in many cases are the single largest limiting factor to taking advantage of arbitrage opportunities quickly,” said study co-author Alexander Wissner-Gross, who a research affiliate of the MIT Media Laboratory and the founder of the Enernetics research consultancy.

Related research was recently published by MIT in the Physical Review E scientific journal. The study will be the topic of a talk at the High Frequency Trading World conference this week in New York.